


Sing Me Something Brave From Your Mouth

by Thistlerose



Category: Star Trek (2009)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-06-18
Updated: 2010-06-18
Packaged: 2017-10-10 04:26:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,075
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/95475
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thistlerose/pseuds/Thistlerose
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After breaking up with Spock, Nyota turns to McCoy.  At first, it's just about sex, and that's fine ... until suddenly it isn't.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sing Me Something Brave From Your Mouth

He gets it. Or thinks he does.

The reason she comes to _him_, of all people.

He's a little disappointed. He thought she knew him better than that, but he does have a reputation, and she's hardly the first person to come looking for him when they've got a problem with Spock.

The difference is, he doesn't try to send her away. Doesn't tell her she's come to the wrong man, she doesn't get it at all, he doesn't trash talk his fellow officers, not behind their backs. Doesn't try to explain to her that his issues with Spock are philosophical; he _likes_ the guy, damnit, though he knows their arguments have a certain sharpness that's probably easy to misinterpret.

He just lets her into his room, offers her a finger or two of bourbon. When she nods, he goes and gets a bottle of the _good_ stuff. Because it's _her_.

He watches her guardedly as she drinks. She watches him over the rim of her glass.

"I cried six days ago," she says. "I'm not going to cry again. It was over a long time before then. We just didn't know how to say it to each other."

He shrugs.

Later, when they're in bed, he tries to monitor her reactions. Do her fingers linger on the tips of his ears? Is that sweat sheening her beautiful face, or tears? Whose name is on the tip of her tongue when he moves inside her?

These questions go unanswered. She's like cream, soft and cool, and all he can do is lap her up and be so fucking _grateful_ for what little she gives him, that when she gets up to leave, he doesn't watch. He just turns toward the wall with a grunt, and when she's gone, he curls around his pain, waits for numbness. It's a long time coming.

*

They're both grownups, he reminds himself the next morning as he stands in the shower, washing the scent of her from his body. They're old enough to know that sex doesn't always have to mean something. She was lonely and hurting, and he was there. Honestly, he's glad she came to him. Someone else, he thinks as he stands in front of the mirror, raking a comb through his hair, might have read too much into it.

Part of him had hoped that she _would_ come to him. It's been a fantasy of his for a long time now, actually. Without meaning any disrespect toward Spock, he's spent more than one night tugging on his own dick, trying to pretend his hands are hers, that her lips and soft breasts are just an inch or two from his hungry mouth.

Last night, he got a taste of that fantasy in the flesh. Just a taste. And that's fine. That's fine.

He's too old, too smart to let himself get over-involved emotionally.

 

*

She comes back. Not the next night or the night after, but before the week is out she's at his door again, and when he tries to tell her _Nope, sorry, you need to get it somewhere else, darlin,_ something stops his voice.

No drinks this time, and no confessions. When she kisses him, he grabs the hem of her skirt and hoists it up. He doesn't remember what she wore the other night, but this time it's white cotton panties, so fucking practical he almost laughs. He slides one hand down the back, cupping her roughly. She wriggles against him eagerly. He can feel her heat and her wetness on his fingers. The scent of her is almost overpowering.

By the time she has him hard and heavy in her hands, he's regained the ability to talk, but all he growls against her lips is, "Spread your legs for me, darlin."

*

It's just sex, he tells himself. Just damn good sex. The fact that she keeps coming back doesn't mean anything.

Sometimes they talk.

Sometimes they don't.

Sometimes she tells him what she wants and he gives it to her.

Sometimes he tells her about his fantasies – never calling them that – and she makes them real for him.

For a little while, anyway.

It doesn't mean anything.

*

Until suddenly it does.

Suddenly it hits him, what this thing they have is doing to him, and for a few long moments he can't breathe at all.

When she comes to him that night, he fucks her in a manner that's damn near perfunctory. He gets her off, but he's just going through the motions. Afterward, when she reaches for her panties, he says, "Darlin, if that's what you want, maybe you should've stuck with him."

She freezes.

He can half-see her in the dim lighting, a slender shadow perched on the edge of his bed. "Fuck you," she whispers.

It hurts. But he's glad of the pain. He's not a Vulcan; he likes his emotions upfront, where he can see them. Pushing himself up on one elbow, he reaches for her. She shies away, and all he gets is a wisp of her hair, soft as silk between his fingers.

"I can't do this," he says plainly. "It's gotta mean something, or it's not worth doing."

She pulls on her panties and grabs up her bra, uniform dress, and boots. She's dressed and out the door in under a minute.

*

She's back before the ship's night cycle is over.

He couldn't get to sleep. He's drinking coffee and reading in bed when she reappears in his doorway, looking the way he feels: tired, almost used up.

Her cheeks are wet; he tastes the salt when he kisses her.

Of course he kisses her. And folds her in his arms, stroking gently while she whispers in a broken voice, "It means something, Leonard. Idiot, it means _everything._ I don't want to give you up."

Cupping her chin, sweeping the pad of his thumb across her bottom lip, he asks, like he's asked maybe half a dozen times before, "What d'you want, darlin?"

"You," she whispers, bringing her cool hands up his chest and letting them rest over his heart, like she's checking to make sure it's still beating.

It is, but damn, she gave him a scare.

She kisses his fingertips. "Just you."

God, he's easy. He shouldn't be, but he is. Or maybe it's just with her. But he thinks she gets it now. He's willing to chance it, anyway.

3/13/10


End file.
